The subject matter disclosed herein relates generally to nuclear medicine (NM) imaging systems, and more particularly, to a method and system for positioning detectors for NM imaging.
NM imaging systems, for example, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) imaging systems, use one or more imaging detectors to acquire image data, such as gamma ray or photon image data. The imaging detectors may be gamma cameras that acquire two-dimensional views of three-dimensional distributions of emitted radionuclides (from an injected radioisotope) from a patient being imaged.
When imaging a specific structure, organ or anatomy of the patient, such as the heart, liver or kidney, the patient must be positioned in relation to the detector or camera of the imaging system such that the structure to be imaged is within the field of view (FOV) of the imaging system, in particular, within the FOV of all of the imaging detectors. If the patient is not positioned correctly, the scan must be stopped and the patient repositioned. In other cases, the positioning problem may not be apparent during the acquisition, and thus acquired data may be reviewed and/or processed before it is found to be deficient. In some cases, incorrect positioning may case image artifacts such as truncation or distortion of the organ of interest. For example, when imaging a brain of a patient, the patient is typically positioned on a table of a SPECT imaging system. However, in this position it may be difficult to properly align the gantry to acquire images without artifacts. Thus, known systems and patient positioning within the systems are typically unable to preserve spatial and quantitative properties of the object to be reconstructed, for example, striata features in the brain, as well as the rest of the brain.